Omega Centauri

This photo of Omega Centauri, the brightest and largest globular cluster in the sky, was obtained with the Danish 1.5 m telescope at the ESO La Silla observatory. It shows the central part only; the cluster is actually much larger than the field reproduced here. At a distance of about 16,500 light-years, the diameter of the field corresponds to a linear distance of about 90 light-years. Within this area, there are hundreds of thousands of stars which belong to the cluster.

A recent investigation carried out with the CORAVEL instrument, also attached to this telescope, has shown that the total mass of Omega Centauri is in excess of 5 million solar masses, making it by far the most massive cluster of its type on the Milky Way galaxy.